The unit at 1949 Kingsway served Indian-style Chinese food for 27 years.
Two months after it closed, it is serving Yunnan rice noodles from a chain with more than 2,000 stores.
Meetrice Noodle, the Chinese chain, opened its third Metro Vancouver location there in late August, running daily from 11am to 10pm.
The shop announced it on Instagram with a wall of red opening bouquets out front and a caption that reads, in full, “SEND THIS TO YOUR FRIENDS!”
Green Lettuce, the Hakka-style Indian-Chinese restaurant that held the space since September 1999, closed on June 28, thanking Vancouver “for the last 27 years.”
Meetrice’s two existing rooms are at 5226 Kingsway in Burnaby, which opened in 2018, and 8580 Alexandra Road in Richmond, which followed in 2019.
An earlier Vancouver store on Main Street has since closed, so Kingsway is technically the chain’s second run at the city.
The company behind it started in Dongguan in 2001, opened its first franchise in 2004, built its own noodle factory in 2011 and passed 2,000 stores across more than 160 cities in 2024.
Founder Li Hongwei was born in Yunnan, and the four characters under the mascot on the Kingsway sign, 米线大王, translate to rice noodle king.
He holds a certificate from the China Culinary Association that says exactly that.
The dish that earned it is crossing-the-bridge rice noodles, the Yunnan style where the broth is the show.
The best seller is the fish maw chicken rice noodle.
Every bowl comes loaded, with meat, vegetables and the extra add-ons piled on a tray so you can see what is going in before it goes in.
Meetrice Kingsway joins the list of recently opened food spots in Vancouver like Bevel, French Creek Pub and Dao Field Kingsway.
For more new and upcoming food spots in Metro Vancouver, take a peek at our tracker here, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.
Address: 1949 Kingsway, Vancouver, BC
Google decides which local food news you see. Tell it you want Noms
One tap adds Noms Magazine as a preferred source. No signup, no email.